The F-22 – Why Does This Surprise You, General?

There’s a nice little piece over in today’s Wall Street Journal authored by General Merrill McPeak, expressing his dismay at the premature termination of the build-out of the originally-planned fleet of the F-22 Raptor – the kick-*ss air-superiority fighter pictured above.

The piece is rather good, so I’ll let you go read the whole thing via the link.

I’ll just note a couple of things here:

The future air combat capabilities we should build are based on the F-22, a stealthy, fast, maneuverable fighter that is unmatched by any known or projected combat aircraft.

….

It’s been more than half a century since any American soldier or Marine has been killed, or even wounded, by hostile aircraft….

That first item is simply a statement of fact, while the second is a truly-astonishing description of an unparalleled military achievement.

But there’s a kicker at the end of this piece, which we’ll note below the fold….

The kicker comes when you get to the end of the piece, and read the general’s byline:

Gen. McPeak (ret.), Air Force chief of staff from 1990 to 1994, was a national co-chair of Obama for President.

Why does any of this surprise you, General? Weren’t you fully aware of Mr. Obama’s lifelong views on these sorts of topics? Don’t you recall the “surrender lobby” of the 1980s? And of how Mr. Obama made it perfectly clear back then that he agreed with the views of that “lobby”?